Glens Falls (NY) Online Book Discussion Group discussion
What are U doing today?
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What are U doing today? (Ongoing thread)
message 1801:
by
Joy H., Group Founder
(new)
Jan 24, 2011 04:11PM
Nina, like you, I was inspired to enjoy history by a wonderful high school teacher. She taught us about the Time Line and she made history interesting. She was actually disabled and could only walk by holding brace-like supports in her strong hands and swinging her legs which appeared to be paralyzed. We never thought that was unusual; we just accepted it. Her name was Miss Cleverdon, if I'm not mistaken. That was over 60 years ago.
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What I am doing today, Tuesday January 25th?Well, I am voting--Omaha, Nebraska is having an election to decide if the mayor is to be recalled or not. Political ads have been flying around here for the last week for both sides!
Also, I am sleeping in. The fire alarms for the entire building went off at 12:15 am and I'm dashing down the stairs in my nightgown with my coat thrown over it! Broke up my sleep for a good hour---fire trucks and all.
NO one hurt--a case of much smoke from food burning on a stove! But those abrupt awakenings can sure give one an adrenaline surge.
Only 1 client to visit today - a bit of a drive (1 hour from the office). Breaks up the day, though!Yesterday I mentioned we had 3 computers and call the room our computer room. 1 laptop, 1 10-inch mini computer and one desktop computer. The desktop computer had its 2nd blue screen. Ran a full virus scan. No problems. Computer is just old. Screen and keyboard are relatively new. Husband loves getting new "toys" so now he's researching computers to buy a new one. I keep saying we don't need one yet. We did back up all the documents and have them on shared with the laptop. Shall we take bets on what day we get a new computer!!!???? Ha!
Hi Mary JL and Linda. Nice to hear from you. Hope the rest of your day goes well.
Nothing that exciting here except they are predicting 54 degess on Friday. Hope it comes true. I am engrossed with the gross book, "The Girl Who Played With Fire," nina
Twenty seven below. You take Care! Poor dog. nina
Our current temp at 5:14PM is 18.7F according to our home thermometer. This cold spell is lasting a very long time!
Your temps are at least coming up in the world from below zero to 18. A jump in the right direction. nina
This morning, I had a dental appointment, to have a temporary crown put on one of my teeth. It was raining on the trip over; but when I was putting on my coat to leave (it was about 11:25 a.m. then), I looked out the window and saw snow already coming down VERY heavily. It continued for at least most of the afternoon, though it's stopped now. I hadn't been home long before I got a call informing me that the college would close at 1:30 (I'd normally have reported for work at 2:00). Barb had today off, and got in from her errands in the early afternoon; so we've spent the time since hibernating indoors. (It's a balmy 29 degrees and dropping outside, with deep snow everywhere.) At this rate, lately I've spent a lot more time staying home than I have going to work!
Werner, this has such a snowy winter! Luckily, today we escaped being hit by another snow storm. Instead, the storm hit our downstate NY areas.
We got a couple of inches here at work yesterday in the morning, but only 1/2" is left. That's all we got at home, but it's all still there plus some. It's just a few degrees warmer here at work in Louisville & 500 feet lower down. Makes all the difference.Our weatherman said we hit 24" of snow for the winter yesterday. The average is 16" & last year we got 27 3/4" for the entire year. We still have quite a while to go, too. At least it usually melts off before more piles on.
Yes, Jim, I hope our snow melts before more piles on. It's a worry.
Barb (who's our household's Weather Channel fan) said that before this last snow, our running total for this winter in the Bluefield area was, I believe, 74 inches! Of course, almost all of what we got before yesterday had melted; but all of the new snow is laying. From the height of the little piles of snow standing on the tops of the fenceposts outside the window (which is probably a true measure) I'd guess it to be about 4 inches.
Wow, Werner! We're having snow flurries right now. We may be getting more snow later this week, but it's iffy (30% chance) and may not amount to much. The icicles are still hanging from our roofs and the roofs are still piled with snow. I'm going into hibernation. :)
After I signed off this morning, I learned that our snowstrom brought down some power lines locally; at one point last night, 9,000 people in the Bluefields were without electricity. As of this morning, 4,500 people still were. Hopefully this will be resolved soon!
I hope so too, Werner. Not having electric is terrible.
You said it, Jim! I feel sorry for all those people.
I've been there as perhaps you all have. Why do we take for granted the "luxury" of power; heat, lights etc. Now probably isn't the time to say our weather is predicted to be in the middles fifties tomorrow and perhaps that means it will be coming your way, soon, Jim. nina
It's hovering right around freezing & not supposed to change much all day, then down to the upper 20's tonight & possibly up to 40 tomorrow. We got a little bit of snow last night, but it mostly melted. The thermometers say 32, but the snow says it's a bit too warm. Yay!!!Mom got about 8" of snow & my son Brandon, just 10 miles north, got over 10". His snow blower broke, too. Either a gear box or a shaft went. It's a 1960's model snowblower on a 1970's Gravely walk behind. I used it for years & sheared a shaft once, too. Gravely still stocks them new - they had 3 left when I last checked. Not too surprising since they wanted $800 each! I found a used one on Ebay for $30, as I recall.
Nina, Jim, and Werner, at least in your areas, the snow melts soon after it falls. Here in the Northeast, the snow hangs around.BTW, on TV I recently heard a word that's new to me. The word is "snirt". It's defined as follows:
A portmanteau of “snow” and “dirt”.
"Snow that is dirty, often seen by the side of roads and parking lots that have been plowed."
FROM: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/snirt
"Snow covered with dirt, which occurs most often in spring, in Prairie States like North Dakota, where strong winds pick up black topsoil from uncovered farm fields and blow it into nearby towns where the melt rate is slower. The phenomenon is almost magical; one goes to sleep with white snow outside and awakens to black snow. Also, snow that is dirty, often seen by the side of roads and parking lots near areas that have been plowed."
FROM: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snirt#On...
I wonder how old that word is and who coined it.
Today online I read an article from our local Post-Star, posted Thursday, 1/27/11. The headline says: "Barn fire in upstate NY kills about 200 animals". This happened Sunday in Johnstown, about 40 miles west of Albany. See the article at:http://poststar.com/news/state-and-re...
Excerpts:
===========================================================
"A woman who lost about 200 farm animals in an upstate New York barn fire blames the disaster on a propane heater she had set up to protect newborn and pregnant sheep and goats from subzero cold ... she set up a propane tank-mounted portable space heater in a room of the barn.
'One of the goats must have pushed the door open and knocked over the tank,' she said.
...
"Friends managed to rescue 10 scorched sheep and goats from the fire Sunday..."
===========================================================
I know our Jim in KY would be more careful about placement of the space heaters in his barn, but I thought of him when I read this.
Such a sad story.
That's horrible. We have a lot of portable heaters of various sorts (mostly electric, but some propane) around & they worry me to death constantly. Not only are they huge energy hogs, but the fear of fire always looms large. It's always a big worry in a barn anyway. Those poor animals!
Jim, I hope it warms up soon so that we'll have less to worry about.
My wallet might quit whimpering, too.;-)
The cost of comfort! :)
My heart goes out to those poor animals, Joy, and I'm so sorry! (And sorry, too, for the owners' loss; that's a terrible financial blow for any farm family.)Our snow here often melts pretty quickly, but not always. Wednesday's snow, for instance, is as deep as ever, or deeper; some flurries have added to it since. And we usually have tons of "snirt" produced by plowing snow mixed with dirt and gravel from the streets onto the sidewalks.
Snirt I have - cool word. Thanks, Joy. Every time I plow the lane, half the stone winds up in the grass. I try to go around with a shovel as it melts & toss the stone back in, but I never get it all. I'll rake & then mow at least once before sharpening my blades in the spring.
I guess that's the trouble with stone lanes, Werner.
They're a lot cheaper & more versatile than pavement of any sort. With as heavy as Marg's school bus is & as often as she runs off the lane into the grass, there's no way we could pave, even if I could afford it. When it snows, I sure would like it, though.
Thanks again, Joy for the New York Times Best Seller list.I see that The Help is at number 8, after 85 weeks on the list. Amazing! I see by my GR records that I read it last January. Maybe it's time for a reread.
I bet most of the people around me with snirt on the side of the streets where they live don't even know that is what that ugly mess is called. nina
Nina, I don't think the word "snirt" has really caught on. It's not a very pleasant sounding word. We might as well say "dirty snow". :)
Today Harley gets her leg amputated. Marg is not happy, but Harley's elbow has fused & she keeps catching the leg on stuff. That's causing more pain & a longer healing time in the shoulder. They're going to take the leg off just below the shoulder.They could take the whole shoulder, but decided not to as that is a lot more invasive. Marg is getting blood work done first to see what shape Harley is really in. She had a bad liver problem at one point, so if it looks like she might have other problems, we'll have her put down.
Poor Harley! I hope all will go well for her. Please let us know how things go.
Harley is home & miserable. Here's a picture of her. Warning - it's not pretty.http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid...
She has a sweet face and she is alive. nina
Harley looks so sweet and so brave. She will recover in time. Thank you for the photo. Looks like the doctor did a neat job. It will look better when her fur grows in.As Nina so wisely said, "she is alive". She's a survivor!
Jim, thanks for sharing the picture. I really wish I could just reach into it, pick her up on my lap, and pet her!
She ate some last night, but everything really hurts, including getting her outside to the bathroom. Still, I think she'll heal faster now. She really does want to be pet, but she's wiggly & hurts herself, so we're just letting her sit quietly in her kennel.Thanks for all the well-wishes. I'll let you know how she progresses.
The power of the Internet & social networking sites like Facebook just made itself felt. I received an email about 52 horses that were going to be sold for slaughter on Saturday from a friend. I don't know how long the email had been out there, but I hadn't put it up on FB for more than 5 minutes before I was informed that all the horses had been placed. Very cool.Hopefully they went to actual good homes & weren't bought up by some scam artist who was just reselling them for slaughter. That happens, unfortunately. Always has. This whole anti-slaughter campaign for horses is just stupid & cruel.
Jim, I'm glad to hear the horses were placed! Quick question --am I guessing correctly that what you meant to say, above, is that slaughtering horses is stupid and cruel? (I heartily agree!)
Werner, I was wondering the same thing.
Jim wrote: "The power of the Internet & social networking sites like Facebook just made itself felt. ..."Jim, it gives a whole new meaning to the expression, "word of mouth".
No, Werner. I think We should re-open horse slaughter houses & regulate them. They are slaughtered, anyway. The difference is that they get shipped out of the country to do it. That just means more lost to poor conditions in sales & shipping - tortured to death rather than a quick one. A greater number starve under poor conditions because it's a little more difficult to get rid of unwanted horses. Often it can cost money.The opponents to horse slaughter say it is cruel & point out a few incidents. Now there are just hundreds that are even worse.
Glens Falls (NY) Online Book Discussion Group
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